Cute Dahl, and completely appropriate for the venue in question. Creative people are passionate about their ideas, and writers are even more so. We build villages, towns and cities. We build races, cultures and histories. We build worlds, planets and galactic civilizations. Those ideas come from within our own heads, hearts and souls. If we were to share our work with someone else on an equal basis, their ideas would have to be used as well, and sometimes supplant our own. How would you decide whose idea is the better one, and how would you prevent yourself from being insulted when its your partner's, and not your own? Take your time Miles. You have plenty of time to explore the worlds within your mind. Don't be like the people within the rat race. Stop speeding here and there in the vehicle of writing. Slow down and take the time to smell the roses, or tell us how they smell. Sitting down and seeing your idea flow out of your mind onto the paper, or the computer screen, is half the fun. The other half is when you've completed it. The pain is the revision, but when that's done, more fun!
I'm a bit confused about your whole initial question. I'm confused about why you'd want either a co-author or a ghost writer. Co-authoring is very difficult and really requires a compatibility and meshing of personalities and writing styles. Often co-authors have an idea together and for whatever reason, the writing process is difficult in that it requires a very high amount of research or work outside of the author's imagination. Sometimes this works if each author is writing from the perspective of a different character, but because people have different writing styles, it is very easy for the writing to come across as choppy and disjointed. There's a lot of extra work involved to make sure that the story flows smoothly. Ghost writing is most typically done when there is some story to be told but the person writing the story doesn't have good writing skills or is not a professional writer and has no real interest in writing one -- a typical example is the celebrity autobiography. An established writer who is mostly interested in churning out stories to meet contracts is another scenario. But in these cases, the alleged "writer" is mostly writing the book for the money, not because they have a passion to tell a particular story. That's where I see the disconnect. It's hard enough to get a book published and to become an established author. Most books, even ones that garner a lot of critical acclaim, and crack the bestseller lists (in and of itself a huge longshot) don't make huge amounts of money. A handful of authors make the lion's share of profits from book-selling. So, if you're not an established author or celebrity or someone who has some other credential that makes your name on the cover as the author a highly desirable quality (in commercial terms), I don't understand what you would gain by having someone else write the story for the idea you have. Most of us on these forums and who love writing do so because we love the writing. We love developing our ideas and getting across our thoughts. Most writers don't write for the money, but because they love the idea of having communicated an idea to someone else -- the thought that we touched someone's life, made them think about something in a new way, contemplated something we wrote, validated our idea or imagination is what many writers are really seeking. Even if it takes us our entire lives to get out the story we have had in our heads, the motivation is to get our thinking out there and hope that maybe, just maybe there is someone out there who reads it and connects with it. That doesn't happen if someone else wrote the book. It happens if we write it and communicate what we wanted to say successfully. So, if you're not doing it for the money (and if you are, you need to seriously reconsider the time, energy and luck it takes to make any money from writing -- given the time involved, you might be better off working at McDonald's), and you're not doing it because you enjoy getting your ideas onto paper (or the computer file, as is likely the case), I don't understand why you would want to do this.
miles... to put this into real-life context, if i were to take you on as a client and do what you say you want a 'co-author' to do [which is really having a ghostwriter do it], i would have to charge you somewhere in the lower end of mid-5-figures even at the heavily discounted rates i offer folks who can't manage the going rates for professional writing services [since i don't have to do it for a living, i can keep it affordable]... and if you went with a competent pro who does charge the going rates, it would be up in the high-middle to plain high-5... so, as noted above, if you can do some of the writing, it only makes dollar and cents sense to go ahead and do it all...
What if the book has different first person point of views in each chapter. Like I write one chapter as my character, and my partner writes as his or her character in the next chapter. I tried to write a book like that, but the characters all sound the same.
I think that a co-author would likely be a friend, but you still absolutely need a thorough written agreement. Imagine spending a joyful year working on this book with that friend and producing great stuff, and then you suddenly disagree on where the book should go next, and there's no agreement as to who owns the work, nothing to stop him from just taking it away with him, unless you want to spend money you don't have to hire a lawyer. I think that you may be better off getting a writing buddy who can help you solve the point of view problem in a book that you write yourself.
I say, give it a chance. (Reality check: has anyone here actually co-written a book before? No?) Miles, people are always going to tell others "You're going to fail." Don't listen to them. Maybe you will, maybe you won't, but it doesn't matter what they think. They only get a snapshot of what your life is like and make plenty of assumptions based on that one picture. Yeah, to me it also sounds like you might want to consider doing it on your own first, but what do I know? I don't know anything about you! Here is what I think you would need to consider if going ahead with it. 1) Like others have said, get a contract. Include rights, royalties, the whole shabang. If you have the money, it's really best to have a literary lawyer look it over for you. 2) Talk about expectations of each other, and boundaries for yourselves. Have a big one before you get deep into the process, then have routine conversations after that. Keep discussions open, honest, and (most importantly) respectful. 3) Be open about your fears. Like others have said, it is probably a very difficult thing co-authoring a book. Your own, deep-seated fears are going to come up, and so are your co-author's. 4) Be resilient. Keep pushing through despite the challenges, and write every day. 5) Believe in yourself. You can write a book, and you can get it published. It might not be this year, but if you follow step 4 it will happen eventually. 6) Study writing. Read books on writing, blogs, podcasts, etc. If you want recommendations, I have some good ones you can PM about. Read well-written books. I went through an experience where everyone (family, friends, etc.) was telling me it wouldn't work out with my girlfriend, that the cultural barrier was too great. Well, it's been 4 years and we are stronger than ever together. So don't listen to all these anonymous internet peeps that don't know anything about you. If you really want to co-author a book with someone, do it. It could work out really well. If it doesn't, I guarantee you'll have learned something something much more valuable and real than anything you could possibly read on the internet.
go ahead, if that's what you really want to do... but don't either of you write a single word, before you have a good collaboration contract in place [signed and sealed]... ignore this advice and at some point, i guarantee you'll wish you had taken it... the best collaboration contract is the one provided by wga [the writer's union]... it's worded for screenplays, but with just a few word changes and deleting the film industry clauses, it works very well for all kinds of writing... if you can't find it on your own, email me and i'll send you the link...
With a ghostwriter, what if I decide to write the first draft and allow the ghostwriter to change it into his or her own style?
In that case, you might as well just have your first draft edited. I'm not sure I understand how writing a first draft, then having someone else completely rewrite it benefits you in any way. The way I see it, you'll just waste a whole lot of time writing your first draft for nothing if you're going to let someone redo your entire novel. Why not just use what you've written already, have it edited, and call it yours and no one else's?
of course you can do that... the fee will be somewhat lower than having it ghostwritten from the start, but it will still run into the high 4 or low-to-mid-5 figures... how could they tell?... there's no way for readers to know who wrote something... they just assume the person who's credited on the cover is the author... and what difference will it make, anyway?... if the book gets published and sells well, why would you care?
There's still no particular likelihood that you would be published, and if you are published, no particular likelihood that you would earn even as much as you paid the editor or ghostwriter.
i have to go further and say that the odds are heavily against the book being accepted by a paying publisher, no matter how well it's edited or rewritten and there's next to no chance that money will be earned back, even if the book is published...
